Chimaera (106 page)

Tiaan moved the thapter to a little park not far from the square and left it in the shade of an ancient and gnarled fig, so it would be cool inside when they returned.

Despite the attitude of the governors, the common folk knew who’d saved them, and everyone wanted to shake their hands. It took Tiaan more than an hour to get back to her friends in the square, where they too were surrounded by laughing, cheering and crying well-wishers. It almost made up for the past two years.

Troist gave his last order as a general, that everyone was to be fed from the army’s stores, and the town brought out long-hoarded delicacies from its larders. Tables and trestles were set up, and when the meal was ready the entire town took their seats in the square. It was no feast, but the fare was better than most people had tasted in long years. The mayor fetched barrels from his cellar and ladled wine into jugs.

After the speeches were over, and congratulations and gifts had been accepted from the notables of Ashmode, the companions sat down together for the last time before they went their separate ways. They were twelve now: Yggur opposite Irisis, Flydd opposite Nish, Gilhaelith opposite Tiaan, Merryl opposite Troist, Malien opposite Flangers – who’d walked for a week to rejoin the army after Gilhaelith abandoned him in Tacnah – and Fyn-Mah facing Klarm. Flydd set Golias’s globe on the table in front of them, covered with a cloth. Perhaps he was afraid of losing it as well.

The jugs of wine were distributed. Yggur and Klarm splashed it into the mugs and Yggur rose, raising his drink high. ‘To peace,’ he said.

They stood up and everyone in the square did the same. ‘To peace!’ they roared.

‘To a future without the lyrinx,’ said Yggur. Another roar.

‘Or scrutators!’

The roar dwarfed the others, though Flydd only pretended to drink this time. In the end, he was only a man, and after giving his all for the world, the world had cut him down.

When the toasts were done, Flydd downed half his mug and gagged. ‘Ah, that’s like chewing on an anteater’s tail. I knew I should have sat at the mayor’s table, rather than down here with the rabble.’ He shrugged, sank the rest and poured himself another. He looked along the table. ‘You’ve been a great company, and I’ll cherish our comradeship to the end of my days. But it seems to be drawing to a close. What are your plans, my friends? Irisis?’

Tiaan saw that Nish was gazing at Irisis with a hungry look in his eye, but Irisis was looking anywhere but at him.

‘I never thought I’d survive the war – in fact I was sure I wouldn’t. But now it’s over, I’m going to be a jeweller, of course. It’s what I’ve dreamed about since I was a little girl …’ She looked up at the sky, around the table and down again.

‘And …?’ said Flydd, grinning broadly. The whole table was smiling, apart from Nish, who had an anguished look on his face.

He has no idea, Tiaan thought. Irisis was right; Nish really is the thickest man on Santhenar. Please put him out of his misery.

‘I never dared to love openly, but now I can. Nish is going to be my man, of course.’ Irisis pulled him to her and kissed him on the mouth in front of everyone, and Nish could not restrain his tears this time.

‘What about you, surr?’ Irisis said after a decent interval of congratulations, and more toasts with the truly awful wine.

‘I’ll write the Histories of the war. I want to make sure
my
version is recorded … you know how it is.’ Flydd glanced at Fyn-Mah and smiled. ‘And then, I think, an honourable retirement. Perhaps a cottage and a garden full of flowers.’

Nish had recovered sufficiently to choke into his wine cup. ‘Retirement and flowers?
You?
’

Flydd scowled down his battered nose. ‘And why not?’ he snapped, before turning to Tiaan. ‘What will you do now, Artisan?’

‘I’m going home to Tiksi,’ she said. ‘To find my mother.’

‘And then?’

‘I don’t know.’ Tiaan looked slantwise across the table at Nish, who was staring into Irisis’s eyes again. She looked away. ‘I’ll find work somewhere. I don’t suppose the manufactory will need artisans any more, but someone will.’

‘What then?’ Flydd persisted.

She hesitated. ‘I’d like to find a mate, and have children. I never had a proper family, but in spite of Marnie I –’

‘Marnie?’ said Merryl, staring at her. He half-rose from his seat. ‘Marnie who?’

‘Marnie Liise-Mar,’ said Tiaan. She pushed back her chair, and her scalp felt as if it had been rubbed with a chunk of ice.

‘Tiaan?’ he whispered, as if he had never heard the name before. ‘Your name is Liise-Mar?’

‘Yes. Marnie is my mother.’

‘Why did I not know?’ Merryl cried. ‘My daughter – my precious, precious daughter.’

As she stared at his familiar yet entirely new face, a single tear ran down her cheek. ‘Father?’

He walked around the table towards her. She ran and threw herself into his arms, sobbing for sheer joy.

‘All my life I’ve been searching for you, Merryl,
Father
. I’ve never forgiven Marnie for sending you off to the front-lines to die.’

‘I forgave her many years ago. It was a man’s duty to serve and I didn’t go unwillingly. I often think of her …’

‘But you can’t go back to her after what she did to you?’ she cried.

‘I don’t expect anything of her, after all this time,’ he said. ‘Marnie was young and foolish, and so was I, but I do want to see her again. She was so slim, so beautiful. Rather like you, Tiaan.’

‘She’s fat!’ said Tiaan. ‘Fat but still beautiful.’

‘And I’m aged beyond my years and lack a hand. And my only skill is to speak a language that no one on Santhenar uses. Tell me about her.’

‘I’m the oldest of fifteen children, all with different fathers. All my brothers and sisters are living, the last I heard. All clever and hardworking, too.’

‘Marnie was a very clever woman,’ he said. ‘She just chose not to use it the way other people wanted her to.’

‘Father,’ said Tiaan, and the word sounded strange in her ears. ‘What is your name? I tried to find you in the Tiksi bloodline register but I couldn’t read the writing.’

‘I’m Amante Merrelyn, though I’ve not used my name in twenty years.’

‘Merrelyn,’ said Xervish Flydd. ‘I thought you looked familiar.’

‘Amante,’ she said, rolling the name around on her tongue. ‘Amante.’

‘It’s too grand for the man I am now. Merryl fits me much better.’

‘How come you didn’t know my name?’ said Tiaan.

‘You hadn’t been named when I was sent to the war. I thought about my daughter all the time, and it was hard, without a name.’

‘I never liked using her name. For twenty years I’ve just been Tiaan.’

‘I knew your parents, Merryl,’ said Flydd.

‘They both had a gift for languages,’ said Merryl. ‘More than a gift – a talent bolstered by the Art. They travelled the world with kings and governors, and even scrutators.’

‘They were among the greatest translators of the age,’ said Flydd. ‘A tragedy that they were lost so young.’

‘It was, but at least they passed their talent to me.’

‘Perhaps that’s why you’re the only person ever to master the lyrinx tongue.’

‘It’s not much use to me now,’ said Merryl.

‘You never know,’ said Flydd. ‘By the time you’ve written down all you know about the lyrinx and the war, for the Histories, you’ll be an old man …’ He looked up at the sky. ‘What’s that? Irisis, you’ve got the best eyes here.’

She stood up, shading her eyes with her left hand. ‘It looks like an air-dreadnought, though with three airbags instead of five. A big flat one, and two smaller ones underneath.’

A cloud passed in front of the sun and the breeze bit into Tiaan’s bare arms, reminding her that winter, even this far north, was not far away.

‘I wonder who it could be?’ said Nish.

‘More governors coming to carve up the world, now we’ve won it for them,’ said Flydd, again with that hint of bitterness. ‘The news went out by farspeaker as soon as the lyrinx began to go through the gate. They’ll be going to the conclave on the other side of town.’ He filled his mug again and they took up their cutlery.

But Flydd was wrong. The air-dreadnought came up slowly and began to circle the square. Tiaan laid down her fork. The craft was huge, nearly twice the size of the air-dreadnoughts that had attacked Fiz Gorgo. Its airbags came to triple points at the front and were painted vermilion with threatening jags of black. The suspended vessel had triple rotors at its broad, rectangular stern, each more than two spans across.

‘What a racket,’ said Nish, putting his hands over his ears as it turned ponderously into the wind. The rotors made a squealing clatter that grated on the nerves.

‘There’s no badge or insignia,’ said Flydd, putting down his mug. ‘But it came from the north-east.’

Soldiers lined the sides, dressed in the same red with black jags. It was not a uniform that anyone recognised. Red helms covered their heads, the nosepieces extending down to their upper lips.

The air-dreadnought settled in an empty space on the far side of the square, its triple keels crunching on the gravel. The rotors squealed into silence. A board was lowered, like the gangplank of a ship. Everyone was staring now.

A file of soldiers marched down and stood to one side. Each was armed with a crossbow of extravagant design, and a long sword. Another file took their position on the other side.

Tiaan rose to her feet, trying to see. The plank was empty. No, someone now appeared at the top. A man, though not a tall one. He too was masked and clad in red, with a red cape. A golden chain was suspended from the back of his neck, the ends passing over his shoulders. On either end, at breast height, dangled a bag of black silk or velvet.

The man paused at the base of the plank, nodded to the guards and turned across the square. They fell in behind him.

Xervish Flydd dropped his knife. Irisis had gone white. Nish’s hair was standing on end. He looked as if he had just seen the dead rise. He ran out into the open.

‘Father?’

The man turned towards him and the sun flashed off the platinum mask that covered two-thirds of his face. He had only one arm.

‘I thought you were dead, Father,’ Nish said. ‘And eaten.’

‘I dare say you hoped I was,’ said Jal-Nish Hlar.

Xervish Flydd lurched around the left-hand end of the table, trying to look self-possessed but not quite pulling it off. ‘Quite a plan, Jal-Nish. Even I was fooled.’

Jal-Nish stopped twenty paces away. ‘Not the most difficult of tasks, Xervish.’

‘Only my friends call me Xervish.’

‘You’ve told me that before.’

‘And I dare say those are the tears of the node that exploded at Snizort. The lyrinx didn’t have them at all.’

Jal-Nish touched the black bags, which were giving off a humming sound, and it rose in pitch. ‘Do you hear the song of the tears? I don’t bother with the paltry fields – I carry the power of a node with me wherever I go.’

‘It was you who brought down Vithis’s watch-tower,’ said Nish.

‘I needed to test the power of the tears,’ said his father, as if no other explanation was necessary. But then he added, the visible part of his jaw tightening, ‘The Aachim had no right to come here.’

‘And you who flooded the Dry Sea.’

‘To drown the enemy. Would that I had made up for your negligence sooner, Flydd. You trapped the enemy and failed to crush them.’

‘And you directed the Well at us,’ said Nish.

Jal-Nish waved a careless hand, as if none of these staggering achievements were of significance to a man who had mastered the tears.

‘How did you get away?’ said Nish. ‘I saw your boot at Gumby Marth, with just a gnawed shinbone sticking out of it.’

‘One shin looks much like another after the lyrinx have been at it,’ Jal-Nish said. ‘You always were slapdash, Cryl-Nish. I didn’t think you’d look too closely.’

‘And then you ran like a cur from the battlefield,’ said Nish, ‘leaving your brave men to their doom.’

Jal-Nish’s head jerked up, but he recovered almost at once. ‘When the battle is lost, a prudent man withdraws. And it was lost because of you.’

‘Me?’ cried Nish, balling up his fists.

‘I knew the lyrinx were stone-formed into the pinnacles,’ said Jal-Nish. ‘I was waiting for them, but your clumsy flight woke them before I was ready.’

‘You – you dare blame
me
–’ Nish was so incoherent with rage that he couldn’t get the words out.

‘What a practised liar you are, Jal-Nish,’ said Flydd. ‘Had I realised it when you were a lowly perquisitor, I would have made sure you rose no higher.’

Jal-Nish didn’t bother to argue, though his eye shone like a viper’s.

‘Still, I’m glad you’ve come,’ Flydd went on. ‘The tears will come in handy in the reconstruction.’

‘Oh, indeed. I’ve already begun to make plans for that.’

Another chill prickled the top of Tiaan’s head.

‘You won’t be involved in it, Jal-Nish,’ said Flydd. ‘The old Council is no more.’

‘I thoroughly approve. It outlived its purpose long ago.’

‘And the governors are even now meeting to carve the world up between them.’

‘The world doesn’t need governors either.’

‘If you would hand over the tears, Jal-Nish,’ said Flydd.

Jal-Nish pulled one black bag away and a gasp rippled around the square. On the end of the chain was a roiling, silvery black ball, like boiling quicksilver. He plunged his hand into it.

Flydd choked, clutched at his throat and fell down. His heels drummed on the ground for a minute, then Jal-Nish withdrew his hand. It came out slowly, as if the tears were reluctant to let go their hold, and wisps of silvery vapour clung to it. His skin was white and flaky, the nails as vermilion as his cape.

Jal-Nish smiled. ‘It would be so easy,
Xervish
, but I don’t plan to make it easy for any of you. You betrayed me, though I can forgive that – I’m a most forgiving man. But you also betrayed our world and that I can
never
forgive.’

‘We saved it,’ said Yggur, pushing back his chair and coming forward, ‘and that’s something the scrutators never looked like doing. It was the enemy, after all, who kept them in power.’